Originally Posted by
Firefighterpilo
dremaldent
I appreciate the optimistic post and know you are trying to buffer the doom and gloom. That being said it is more important that all pilots right now stay grounded in reality so they can best position themselves for the future.
All of your points are optimistically subjective at best and misleading at worst. University of North Dakota is not a world renowned financial college and have not predicted anything close to 96% accuracy. In fact they released the same info after 911 saying it was going to only be a couple month slump. We know how that turned out. Being a large aviation school they are trying to paint a rosy picture not grounded in reality. They survive on students paying hundreds of thousands of dollars buying into the pilot shortage myth. They and embry riddle have been peddling this fantasy for two decades.
If pilots learned anything from the lost decade, and this is shaping up to be much worse, things are going to be bad for a really long time.
I am not trying to attack you but after 911 I spent more time listening to pilot recruiters and not enough time focus on reality and it hurt my family. Right now all pilots would be best served planning on the worse case scenarios instead of banking on the best. Some airlines are better positioned then others but all are being hurt. If you are at AWAC and heard Kirbys words you should be planning accordingly.
I wish nothing but the best for all pilots but don’t want to see people with their heads in the sand ignoring the huge red flags. Like they say sh*t in one hand and wish in the other and see what fills up first.
Obviously everyone should plan for a worst-case scenario. But, the worst-case scenario that I am seeing from other pilots on this forum is far worse than will actually happen. Some are saying that all air travel will be shut down for years. Not just a reduction, completely shut down.
UND's projection was completely based in evidence. I watched it and analyzed the data myself.
The industry will recover from this. There might be furloughs, but it won't be terrible once the economy opens back up.
Besides, with the entire economy shut down for a few months, most don't have any options other than to collect unemployment if furloughs happen anyway. Personally, I have a second job lined up, about 9 months of living expenses, and unemployment which will all buffer me through if things go really wrong. Leaving any company right now is a terrible idea. Having backup plans is a good idea. Basically I'm telling everyone that the right decision right now is to ride it out and hope we come out ahead (or at least as far ahead as we can be) once this is all over. Not like you're getting another job flying anyway.